398 Transactions of the Society. 



and different in shape to that of the female (PL XIV. fig. 5). All 

 other known Brachionus males are soft bodied, without lorica. 

 The greatest characteristic peculiarity of this species is that the 

 glassy transparent lorica of the female (PI. XIV. fig. 1) has the 

 two outermost of the six occipital spines greatly prolonged, and 

 further, has two large more or less curved latero-posterior spines. 

 I also found in the water the variety already noted by Surgeon 

 Thorpe, in which the posterior spines are wholly wanting, and the 

 latero-anterior spines reduced in size. The difference in appearance 

 of the two varieties is very striking, and yet they seem to belong 

 to one species, as intermediate forms are found, and even some 

 with only one posterior spine on the left side (PI. XIV. figs. 2, 3). I 

 cannot, however, agree with Surgeon Thorpe's statement that the 

 posterior spines are shed when adult life is reached, for I have seen 

 numerous very young specimens of both varieties, showing that 

 each of them reproduce their own kind ; this being so, it will be 

 best to distinguish this spineless variety by a distinctive name, 

 and I propose to call it Brachionus furculatus var. inermis n. var. 

 (PI. XIV. fig. 4). 



Subsequently I found rather larger specimens of this species 

 in two places in the Orange River Colony, as mentioned below. 

 Although there is a distant resemblance to B. Bakeri and might be 

 confounded with it, B. furculatus does not belong to the B. Bakeri 

 group, the structure of the lorica being of a different type. 



The sizes of the largest specimens are as follows : Over all, 

 including posterior spines, 578 /j, (^ in.), without posterior spines, 

 340 /a (^g in.); greatest width, 265 yu, (^ in.); the female egg, 

 142 /j, by 105 /x ( t Jq by ^2 i 11 -) I lorica of male, 142 /* ( T ^ in.); 

 var. "inermis," length 272 yu (^ in.), width 204 //. ( T ^g in.). 

 PI. XIV., figs. 1-5, shows this species and its varieties. 

 From Johannesburg we travelled to Bloemfontein ; the Bloem- 

 spruit which traverses the town was dry, and was being excavated 

 and regulated to prevent the repetition of dangerous floods during 

 the rainy season. On September 3 a day excursion to visit the 

 Government Experimental and Stud Farm at Tweespruit, some 

 58 miles east of Bloemfontein near the Basutoland border, enabled 

 me to make some good collections of Rotifers. Our train stopped for 

 twenty minutes at Sannah's Post, celebrated through the disastrous 

 Boer surprise attack on an unsuspecting British column on the 

 march in the late war, when seven guns were lost. The Boers 

 were hidden in the dry bed of the Koorn Spruit, a small rivulet 

 and tributary to the Modder river, excavated by water in the level 

 plain and quite invisible at twenty yards' distance. At the spot 

 where the column intended to cross the spruit and where the fight 

 took place I saw a pool of water in the river bed, which I examined, 

 and found it swarming with Rotifers, water-fleas and pond life 

 generally ; I secured a bottle-full of the condensed water and 



